What’s the difference between Gov. Charlie Baker and Benito Mussolini?
Mussolini made the trains run on time.
That meme has been circulating widely on the Internet this week, and it does seem appropriate, given the recent chaos on the MBTA, especially with the Red Line.
But what makes this ongoing commuter disaster even more exasperating is the fact that Tall Deval testified before a legislative committee on Beacon Hill this week on his scheme for a $1-billion tax increase to “confront climate change.”
So, just to put it in context: this is a governor who, five years after taking control of the T, is presiding over what is perhaps the least reliable mass-transit system in the US. And instead of hanging his head in shame and vowing to do better, Tall Deval now has the audacity to tell us he’s figured out how to “make important investments in cost-effective and data-driven solutions” to global warming.
Tall Deval modestly claims he can save the planet by raising the transfer tax on a real-estate deed from $2 per $500 of value to $3. In other words, if you’re fleeing to Florida or New Hampshire and selling your house for a half-mil, the hackerama will be reaching into your pocket for an extra $1200.
But it’s for the best of causes, Tall Deval assured his fellow kleptocrats at the State House. Not only will Massachusetts be spared the ravages of global cooling, er warming, er climate change, er extreme weather… but this will “develop solutions and policy approaches that can be shared outside the borders of our Commonwealth.”
Think of all those new hack hires and future Solyndras as an investment in the future.
“This increase provides a sustainable, dedicated funding revenue stream that will be available to invest directly in local and state climate change work, year after year.”
And behind all that hack sustainability comes the 80-percent state pension. The only change in the climate is that it will be even easier for relatives of state reps and assorted “community advocates” to get more six-figure hack jobs going on tropical junkets and taking three-day weekends twice a month while slurping at the public trough.
Besides, what’s the problem anyway? Didn’t Barack Obama assure us in June 2008 that his election would be “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”
Of course he also promised us that if we liked our doctor we could keep our doctor….
This latest tax increase on Beacon Hill would less obnoxious if the hacks weren’t already bungling their assigned tasks, especially at the T. How many breakdowns and fires have there been on the Red Line this week?
And what about last weekend on the Green Line, with the “operator error” outside Kenmore Square? The driver was 62, and he’d only been on the job for three years. Does that math work for you? Even at the old rescinded pension-after-23-years MBTA standard, that Local 589 card carrier would have been 82 before he went out with the full kiss in the mail.
It’s gotten so wretched on the T that those benighted souls who have to rely on a bus to get to work in the morning now consider themselves fortunate. As expensive as they are, ferries may be the most reliable mode of transportation in the system – by a process of elimination.
Few can defend either the governor or the MBTA anymore, and now even Tall Deval’s perennial pom-pom wavers at the Globe are fleeing the wreckage. A Globe q&a story about the opening of the casino in Everett yesterday included this question: “I want to see the casino, but I’m sick of the T….”
If you’ve lost the Globe’s blow-in trust-funded cheerleaders, you’ve lost the Chamber of Commerce.
Since he obviously can’t save the T, Tall Deval has decided to save the planet. How Bill DeBlasio-like of him. And now Baker prefers to soak the homeowners who’ve lived here their entire lives and are now trying to escape rather than confront the endemic corruption of his State Police, or the fact that the judiciary is using the state treasury as its personal piggy bank to pay for criminal enterprises gone awry.
Will Tall Deval be at the casino’s grand opening Sunday? Most likely. Will he be taking the T? Hah. You’ll spot Il Duce on the Orange Line this weekend before you see Tall Deval.